Bangkok Impact is the nom
de disco of talented newcomer Sami Liuski. Sami is a 23-year-old
electronics genius from the small town of Rovaniemi in northern
Finland. His father is a dairy worker. His mother’s
employed by the local police station. Sami lives on his own,
but he has a girlfriend. He studies digital media at the University
of Lapland.

Music is his consuming passion, however, and
over the past two years Sami has released a handful of incredible
singles. Chances are you’ll have heard his latest one,
‘Masters Of The Universe’, while
out and about in the country’s hipper nightspots. A
deluxe nine-minute nouveau-disco epic in two parts, ‘Masters
Of The Universe’ is Sami’s hymn to that great
macho stoic, He Man, and it rocks hard in the campest fashion
possible. VICE magazine describes it as “the best dancefloor
record pressed onto plastic this year” and you know
what? They’re spot on.

Though Finnish, Sami has forged close ties
with the formidable Dutch electro scene, which is finally
receiving deserved exposure in the UK. There, respected labels
such as Clone (based in Rotterdam), Crème
Organization and Bunker (from The
Hague), and major player I-F’s Viewlexx,
Panama and Holosynthesis
imprints champion a dirty, debonair approach to dance music
that’s led to their style being dubbed ‘”The
West Coast Sound of Holland”.
In 2001, working under the pseudonym 8-Bit Rockers,
Sami sent Bunker a demo which they swiftly released as a 12-inch.
That same year, Sami gave Bunker another demo featuring tracks
by his other aliases, Lolita Strap and Bangkok
Impact. The Bunker crew were so impressed with Sami’s
playful and inventive neo-disco sound that they instantly
released it on their new label, Crème Organization.

Of his Bangkok Impact pseudonym,
Sami says: “I was smoking a cigarette one morning and
I was playing with words in my mind. These two popped in out
of nowhere and I thought they sounded pretty good. Afterwards
I searched Google by using these as keywords and found out
that there's an arena in Bangkok called Impact where things
like Robbie Williams gigs take place. I didn't know this before,
or maybe it was in my subconsciousness.”
8-Bit Rockers, on the other hand, “sounded nice because
at the time I was making this computer-pop that sounded like
it was coming from a computer game. Lolita Strap was another
of these ‘two words that come out of nowhere’
things.”

Today, Crème attracts a growing number
of like-minded, peculiarly-named European artists –
Monkey Chop, Mr Clavio,
Polarius, It & My Computer
– and has yet to put out a record that doesn’t
bring the house down. You’re strongly advised to find
the first Bangkok Impact single. Both tracks, ‘Aspirin’
and ‘Junge Dame Mit Freundliche Tel’,
ably demonstrate Sami’s natural flair for marrying killer
synth melodies to an unorthodox style of house music. Some
call it his “Finnish tango sound”.

Bangkok Impact’s debut album ‘Traveller’
is Crème’s most significant release to date.
It is aptly named too, as it finds Sami exploring dance music’s
past, investigating its future possibilities, and questioning
his affection for disco. For a debut, ‘Traveller’
is some accomplishment. Sami’s assured, clean production
technique allows him to blend funk, soul, supple computer
pop and trippy, organic electro into a flexible and seductive
style all of his own. ‘Traveller’ is: an immediately
gratifying listen; an accessible soul odyssey; an 11-track
masterclass in modern disco finesse; an honest album straight
from Sami’s heart.

“When I made the LP I was listening to
a lot of music produced by Quincy Jones from the late-’70s/early-’80s,”
he admits. “I love those Moog basslines in his productions
as well as in old Bootsy Collins records! Metro Area
influences me a lot, I really like their style of electronic
funk and, again, those basslines rock. Older stuff like Giorgio
Moroder and Patrick Cowley are obvious
influences, as well as Kraftwerk and Yellow
Magic Orchestra – I love those melodies and
chord progressions. Also, I was influenced by Dutch producers
like Legowelt, I-F and The Parallax
Corporation.”

Like fellow Scandinavians Röyksopp and
reclusive Scots duo Boards Of Canada, Sami has the enviable
ability to remix his own environment, to lucidly transcribe
his emotions into a lush, harmonious sound.
“I guess my music does have a melancholy tone,”
he says. “I believe that music is influenced a lot by
where one is living. I live here up north where it's very,
very cold in winter. The sun doesn't stay up very long now
so most of the day it's dark. It's a very strange feeling
and sometimes depressing too. Of course it's all over my music,
even if it's always not very evident. There is still this
feeling I experience every day.”

As a child, Sami discovered the joys of music
through friends and the radio. The first record he bought
was Metallica’s ‘Ride The Lightning’. Although
Sami has dedicated most of the last four years to music production,
he began making tunes at the age of 12, composing songs on
his Amiga 500 computer using tracker programs and sampled
instruments. “I was mainly toying around but I learnt
the basics of how different instruments interact with each
other,” he says. “I also played guitar when I
was younger and learnt some basic music theory through that.
Later on I got some more equipment and started learning things
more seriously.”

Crème aside, Sami has additionally released
excellent tracks on I-F’s Viewlexx label (‘The
Floor’) and contributes ‘Bright
Light, Dim Light’ to Clone’s superb ‘We
Still Kill The Old Way’ compilation. For the curious,
that album is a comprehensive introduction to the sounds of
the Dutch scene. Then there’s Putsch ’79’s
‘1300’ EP, Sami’s New York disco-style collaboration
with pal Pauli Jylhänkangas, out now
on Clone. And if you come across tracks by Olavi
and Omni Incentive, yup, that’s Sami
as well.

“It's fun to play with names and mix people's
minds,” adds this multi-monikered musician. “I
think it also represents the thing that I've always liked
about electronic music: the music itself is important, not
who is behind it.”

PRESSBANGKOK
IMPACT - Masters of the Universe 12"
Okay, the bets are off, it's official: this is the best
dancefloor record pressed onto plastic this year. Let's
face it, if you're going to write a deluxe nine-minute
nouvaeu-disco epic in two parts, you pretty much have
to call it "Masters of the Universe". What
could be gayer? How about a fancy synth mince through
"Like A Virgin" on the b-side? Oh My, that
would be irresistible. 10/10
CARAVAGGIO (Vice Magazine - UK Launch Issue 2)

BANGKOK
IMPACT - Traveller 2LP
Disco always creeps back into vogue, reminding us that
it's both the original and one of the best forms of
dance music (and, of course, where dance music as we
know it started).
Disco is the sound that never dies, and the Dutch know
it better than anyone. Artists and labels in Rotterdam
and The Hague (the latter more usually associated with
electro these days) have been spreading the word of
disco¹s umpteenth coming for a while now. Ever
since I-F's defining 'Mixed Up In The Hague' compilations,
the likes of Legowelt and The Parallax Corporation have
been busily reinventing disco.
Now their time has come, and people are finally waking
up to the nouveau disco sound. Of course, Britain is
a little behind as usual - Legowelt's 'Disco Rout' was
one of the biggest tracks in mainland Europe last year
but didn¹t even make the radar screen over here.
It was hearing Legowelt that first prompted Finnish
producer Sami Liuski, aka Bangkok Impact, to switch
to disco. The result is 'Traveller', a tour de force
of an album that easily measures up to the artists that
inspired it in the first place. A shiny, funky hybrid
of Italo-disco tinged with electro and techno, 'Traveller'
is both retro and modern, nodding to Giorgio Moroder
as well as the new school.
Unlike the majority of electro obsessives, Liuski can
write a song - there are three vocal tracks out of 13
('Don't Be A Badboy', 'Crowdpleaser' and the salacious
'Give It To Me Baby'). He¹s just as tasty with
an instrumental, though, as shown by the irresistible
funk-driven grooves of 'Logarhytmic', 'Passenger' and
'Rymdfunk'.
But in the end it¹s Liuski's impeccably light touch,
attention to detail and the sheer infectious nature
of his grooves that make 'Traveller' such a delight
from start to - if you'll pardon the pun - Finnish.
Let there be disco - again.
Tom Magic Feet (8) Jockeslut Magazine, May 2003